The Only Dosage
by YouSentMeFlying
Summary: He thought losing Julia was hard; but seeing Clare parade her boyfriend, Jake around school every day like she had something to prove tore him apart inside. It was now or never… ONE SHOT.


**Banged out another one shot this week. :) Again, I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but it ( kind of ) has a cute ending…for certain fans which I shall not say who. **

As Eli redressed himself, his mind began to wander again. He and Imogen have had sex several times before but all he could ever think about was his darling Clare. Whenever Imogen wrapped her arms around him, he imagined it was Clare finally forgiving him and taking him back after so long. It's been almost a year since their breakup and he still hasn't gotten over her. He thought losing Julia was hard; but seeing Clare parade her boyfriend, Jake around school every day like she had something to prove tore him apart inside.

When he saw that Clare had moved on so quickly, he decided to get himself a girlfriend so he could try and move on as fast as she did. He should have known that wouldn't work out; he's only tried it every single time after a breakup. He's been playing this girl for eight straight months and she hasn't suspected a thing from it. She never once questioned him why he would never show affection in public other than at school and at the Dot. But deep down, she sort of knew he wasn't over his last girlfriend – she didn't want to believe it.

Imogen walked back into Eli's dimly lit room, fully dressed. Her lips curled up into a devious smile as she tied her long dark hair into a ponytail; Eli smirked weakly in response.

Just after Eli threw his shirt on over his head, the door flung open and CeCe stepped through. She was carrying in a plate with several chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven lying in the middle. Her smile lit up her face beautifully – sometimes Eli would joke about it being permanently stitched to her face because it seemed like she never stopped smiling. "Snacks for the two lovebirds," she said in a gentle tone before setting the plate at the end of the unmade bed. "I don't understand how the two of you can live in the dark like this!" Every time Imogen was over, she would take the liberty of closing everything up so it was completely dark in the room. That's how she liked it; dark.

CeCe secretly didn't care much for Imogen. To her, it seemed like she was a bad influence on Eli. After the last three horrible years, he didn't need to be getting into any more trouble. CeCe had been bugging Eli for a very long time to talk to Clare. She knew of everything that happened with their relationship and how much Eli really screwed up trying to protect her; but she also knew that girls were very easy to get forgiveness out of – as long as the guy used the right words.

The room fell silent the longer CeCe stood in the room. "I'll just leave you guys alone," she laughed quietly. "And Eli, next time you're out, pick up some air spray. Something in here smells like sex."

"CeCe!" Eli exclaimed in embarrassment and frustration. His mom would be a little…overwhelming at times.

After CeCe finally left the room to go back downstairs, it was quiet again. Imogen had been eyeing those cookies since they were brought in, and Eli was thinking about the usual – _Clare._

"So…" Imogen began digging in her bag to find what she was looking for. Eli was uninterested in what she was doing or had to say and honestly just wanted her to leave; he'd had enough of her for today. He wasn't particularly in the right mood to talk to people. Finally, she pulled out a small orange pill bottle and handed it over to Eli who was sitting beside her on the bed. For years, she'd been faking really bad pain in her stomach and legs so she could get prescriptions from her doctor. "Do you want to go somewhere to do some of this? I brought the bike over here so maybe we could go for a ride…" Ever since Eli crashed Morty, he didn't have a car to drive. Mostly because his parents didn't trust him after that, but who would? When he met Imogen and found out she had a motorcycle, he was dependent on having her drive him everywhere. It was like he was using her for everything; and he knew it was wrong but he honestly didn't care.

When he told her he wanted to stay home, she about threw a fit. After snatching the bottle from his hands, she jumped up from the bed. "You never want to do what I want to do! All we ever do is stupid shit you're interested in and I'm sick of it!"

"We just had sex after you begged me. That's something."

"Don't get smart with me, Elijah!" she wasn't even looking at him now. She couldn't; she wouldn't. the first few months of their relationship was great, but she's put up with his nasty attitude long enough now and she didn't know what she had been doing wrong.

He scoffed. "Someone's on their period."

Imogen shook her head and slid her bag onto her shoulder hastily. She pressed her lips together in a straight line, trying not to say anything. Mostly because she didn't even know how to respond to that. But she couldn't do this anymore; and she always had to have the last word. "If you want to be like that, do it away from me."

"What do you mean?"

"_I mean, _It's over. I tried with you Eli, I really did. You're to fucking depressing and impossible to deal with all the time!"

He stood up from his bed with a huff. Not that this fight got to him, but he was starting to get annoyed by her attitude; how the hell he dealt with her for so long with forever be a mystery. "_I'm_ the depressing one? You can't set foot in a room without closing it up so it's complete darkness." He shook his head again. He couldn't believe that he was even arguing with her about this right now. They've never gotten into a fight before, but he could already tell this one – their first one – wasn't going to end very well. "Calm down – I was only joking."

"That's all you ever do, Eli. Maybe – I think we need to take a short breather." When she said these words, the hole in his chest grew wider. It reminded him too much of when Clare broke up with him last year. He was hurting more than ever now. He needed her back.

"Fine," he said raising his eyebrows. "Get out of my house."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

Then she stormed out of the room, slamming the door open as she went and stormed down the stairs. She thought about going back to get those cookies that she wanted so badly, but she wanted to make a dramatic exit. Even though she didn't mean to get as upset as she did, she couldn't even face him now. The only two things she was beginning to question right now were her sanity and how the hell she even fell for him.

Eli fell back onto his bed and pulled out his phone as he did so. He knew that she would be back sometime tonight, crying to him about how much she screwed up and how sorry she was. He needed to get out of the house to make sure he wasn't home when that happened. CeCe would be glad to hear he was getting out there again. The only times he left the house were for school and to visit Imogen; which he knew his mother hated when he was out alone with her. Catching up with Adam after so long might be what he needs right now. He definitely missed the guy more than anything.

He dialed Adam's number, the tips of his fingers flying over the small keys as he punched the digits in that he knew by heart; and he pressed the small cellphone up to his ear.

It rang and rang.

He felt as if he should just hang up and try to avoid his best friend's voicemail; but then Adam picked up quickly with a groggy voice and he knew his friend had just been woken up by the annoying sound of his phone going off in his ear. Some things just never changed; like the laziness of Adam Torres. "Finally decided to call me back, did you?"

"I'm sorry, man." And he _was_ sorry for not talking to him since the breakup with Clare. He treated Adam like it was his fault that Eli went utterly crazy to have the love of his life break his heart. He knew it was wrong to do and he shouldn't have shut him out for so long.

"Yeah. You are now; until your new girlfriend breaks up with you. Why don't you just hang up now and save yourself the trouble?"

"Look, I shouldn't have done that. I'm really, really sorry, Adam – I miss you."

He could hear the sound of Adam scoffing on the other side of the line. "That's really sad to admit, dude."

Eli smiled. He really did miss his friend's jokes. "Do you maybe want to catch up tonight? I'm up for 'guy's night'."

"Yeah, uh…there's a party going on downtown tonight. I really wanted to go, but…"

"But, what?"

"Clare's going to be there…with Jake and I don't know if you want to be around them. When they're not in school, they're all over each other. Like, they never leave each other's side."

Eli hesitated before answering. Clare must have changed a lot since they broke up; she would hardly ever touch him in public when they were still together. And now that she was dating some other guy, she was all over him all the time? "I can deal." He told Adam before clearing his throat. "I mean, this is our night. I'll just ignore them."

"You say that now…" Adam sighed.

It wasn't moments after the two boys arrived at the party downtown until Eli spotted Clare. She was curled up on a couch that was sitting outside, Jake beside her. There was some kind of liquid substance inside of the plastic red cups they were drinking out of. They were laughing. Clare looked happy.

Everyone around the guys danced around, some of them holding sparklers in their hands. Bianca was chasing Drew around the area, she was carrying two sparklers in each of her hands and it looked like Adam's older brother was terrified of them.

_Steal Your Heart _by Augustana boomed loudly from the speakers and Eli could already feel a migraine coming on. After not being in this type of environment for so long, it takes a while to get used to the loud music surrounding you.

"She looks so happy," Eli said to himself, looking across the way where he kept his eyes locked on Clare. He hadn't looked away since the second he laid eyes on her here; she was partying so hard – it wasn't like her at all to be acting this way.

Adam rolled his eyes at him. He knew that Eli was going to be acting this way once he saw Clare tonight. As much as Eli told him, he just couldn't believe that he was over Clare yet. "That's because she is happy, Eli. She's moved on and you need to, too." Adam told him over the loud music. He wasn't sure if Eli could hear what he was saying or not, since he just kept his eyes averted forward, but he wasn't going to repeat himself and look like an idiot. "Why don't we just go join the party?" he suggested loudly. "Ignore her, alright?"

"Yeah…" Eli looked down at Adam. His dark bangs hung down over his jaded eyes as he tried to hide the sadness that had come over him already. "Let's go get a drink or something." Adam was right; they shouldn't have come here. Eli was so excited to be able to see his best friend again for the first time in months, and Clare and her damn boyfriend had to ruin their night. Why couldn't Clare have just come with Alli or one of her old friends? Why did _he _have to come along with her? Why did she even have an interest in _him? _By the way Eli was gathering things all this time, Jake looked like a complete idiot. Eli knew Clare's type; he knew she would never go for the 'heartthrob; every girl wants me' type. She hated guys who were so stuck on themselves…

Eli looked back up at the couple as him and Adam began walking up to wait in line to get themselves a drink. Jake was no longer sitting next to Clare on the couch. Clare was alone now; she was looking down into her cup of alcohol; her expression was nothing like it was before. Now she looked sad, crushed, depressed. The feeling of distress wiped across her face; it was obvious – why hadn't Eli noticed this before? He tapped on Adam's shoulder quickly. "Can you get me something? I have to go to the bathroom."

Adam smiled. "You should have went before we came."

"Thanks, mom."

Pushing his way through the crowd of drunken people, Eli cursed under his breath out of frustration. There were entirely too many people in the way and if they didn't move now, he was going to half a meltdown!

But he finally made it through the crowd. He looked down to see Clare who had her eyes closed, her lips turned down into a frown. It was_ now or never…_

Plopping down on the couch next to the small girl, he saw her face light up; but now that he was close to her, he could tell it was such a fake smile. He'd made her smile so many times when they were friends and when they were together that it was easy for him to point it out. Her smile faded again when she realized it was Eli sitting beside her. They hadn't talked since she visited him in the hospital after the accident, but she's seen him around school with that skank of a girlfriend. "What are you doing here?"

"Just enjoying the party; having 'guys night' with Adam." He told her joyfully. Now that he was finally talking to her, he felt a bit better of himself. Clare was so angry with him at the hospital, that it was the only way he could remember her. That's the main reason why he was so down and depressed all the time – the way she yelled at him that night haunted him. Her voice replayed over and over in his head nonstop; until this very moment.

"No." she said, shaking her head. "I mean, what are you doing here talking to me?"

"Oh…" he pinned his eyebrows together and racked his brain for a witty remark to throw at her in hopes she would stop snapping at him. But instead, he decided to be deep. It wasn't very often that he acted that way so he wanted to give it a go. "I know you still love me," Clare sighed and began to stand up from the couch but Eli grabbed her arm gently and looked up into her blue eyes. He missed those eyes; he remembered he once told her that he could spend hours staring down into them. "Just hear me out…please," he begged.

She sat down again, but pushed herself away so she was farther away from him. "Fine. Can't wait to hear this…"

"Clare, I love you so much. More than anything else in the world, and I'm so, so sorry for what I did to you. I never got the chance to explain to you why I was acting like such a freak. It was because of Julia." Clare rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. It was always about Julia and she knew that he would never let go of that bitch. "When she died, I was so hurt. The one year anniversary of her death was coming up…I was with you, and to be honest, I didn't even know how I was acting. I just knew I would do anything to protect you. I was scared the same thing would happen to you that happened to Julia."

"You just wanted to protect me." it wasn't a question.

"Julia had nothing to do with it, Clare." He reached over to take her hands in his. They were cold; like what he was telling her had gotten to her. "I wanted you to be safe. The thought of losing you would tear me apart inside. I guess…I thought if I acted the way I did, you would always be there." He laughed pathetically and dropped her hands to the surface of the couch. Tears began to form in his eyes and no matter how hard he tried to hold them back, he couldn't. He was tired of pretending; he was tired of keeping everything to himself…he was tired of hurting. "Looks like that plan turned out well."

"I had no idea…" she told him just below a whisper. "I'm so sorry, Eli."

There was a short pause of silence while Eli tried to figure what else he wanted to say to her. There was so much he wanted to ask her, but he felt if he pushed to get so much information out of her, she wouldn't give him another chance. "Just tell me one thing." He began. His voice cracked as he spoke; a single tear fell from his eye and Clare's breath was caught in her chest. She hoped he didn't notice how fast her heart was beating right now. "Do you love him?"

"Of course I do…"

"You're a terrible liar." A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips slightly. "I need to know, Clare. Tell me the truth."

She shook her head quickly, looking down at her lap as a painful lump formed in her throat. "No." she told him. "No, I don't."

"Look at me, Clare," by now, he had scooted himself to the other side of the black leather couch. They were inches away from each other and Clare could feel his hot breath burning on her face. She turned her head up to look straight in the eyes. But her vision was foggy from the tears that were begging to escape her glazed over eyes. In a light whisper, he asked her, "Do you still love me?"

She blinked, tears spilling from her eyes as she buried her face into his chest and inhaled the sweet aroma of his cologne. "I love you." Her muffled voice spoke from her mouth being covered by Eli's black blazer. "I missed you so much."

**Who's ready for Degrassi in three days? I'm so excited! **


End file.
